The love affair between Charles Leclerc and the prancing horse of Ferrari is getting worse day by day. The golden boy has not been having it easy of late and even on days when the Scuderia seem to be on their best form, Leclerc seems to be lagging behind, for one reason or the other, his teammate, Carlos Sainz Jr. At the Singapore Grand Prix today, the story was no different, as Sainz stormed to masterful victory, Leclerc sordidly lagged behind.

As a fast-charging George Russell hunted Sainz down in the dying embers of the race, the Spaniard put his genius cap on and pulled off a strategic masterclass. He backed himself into the McLaren of Lando Norris. This gave the Brit a handy helping of DRS and kept the Mercedes’ of Russell and Lewis Hamilton behind. And whilst the cars behind him battled it out thanks to his generous dollop of DRS to Norris, Sainz sprinted to finish the race in first. The same amount of brilliance, however, cannot be attributed to Leclerc.

Charles Leclerc airs disappointment after emphatically losing out to Carlos Sainz Jr.

You could say that Charles Leclerc was built up for failure today. Ferrari split their strategy today and gave Leclerc the soft compound to begin with. It seemed as though they were ready to sacrifice the Monegasque to give Sainz the best shot at victory. A slow stop during the Safety Car period made things worse. After that, it all just went downhill for Leclerc.

Finishing a mammoth 20+ seconds behind his teammate in 4th, Leclerc was visibly devastated. He was quoted as saying, “It means a lot for the team to win this race after all the hard work. It’s a great reward for all our work this year as a team. But I cannot hide my disappointment as I wanted a better result today. But it’s up to me to do a better job yesterday.”

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While Leclerc could’ve driven better yesterday, he would’ve felt a tragic sense of déjà vu with how the team prioritized Sainz today over him.

Leclerc made a scapegoat by Ferrari at Singapore again

Back in 2019, Leclerc suffered a similar fate to today at the hands of his then teammate, Sebastian Vettel. 4 years ago, the Monegasque driver was once again at the other end of a Ferrari strategic choice that seemingly sacrificed him for the other driver. But as Carlos Sainz wins today, Leclerc’s dejected radio message from 2019 deserves another listen.

If you feel Leclerc is gutted today, his 2019 radio call will send shivers down your spine. The moment Vettel undercut Leclerc, thanks to Ferrari preferentially pitting the German first from 2nd, and what was happening became clear to him, he jumped onto the radio and said, “Yeah but what the hell? I mean…”

A dejected Leclerc then could only watch as Vettel took his victory away. “I won’t do anything stupid. It’s not my goal. I want us to finish one-two. I just think it’s not fair. But this won’t change. I won’t be stupid.”

Was Leclerc given unfair treatment at the Singapore GP this weekend?

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